


Not Shiro Anymore

by transcoranic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, i love causing shiro pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 21:45:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9517457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transcoranic/pseuds/transcoranic
Summary: The sword slid into Myzax’s body with sickening ease. It severed muscle and stopped abruptly against a heavy bone with a crunch that seemed louder than the ambient noise of the echoing arena. For a moment Shiro only heard the pounding of blood in his ears, heart beating faster than should have been possible. His vision narrowed to the point of impact, the tiny drops of blue-black blood leaking out around the weapon (sword? Shiro would call it a sword, it was easier that way) where it had lodged. One swelled, so imperceptibly slowly, and trickled gelatinously downwards. Rivulets of blood pooled on the hilt of the sword and spilled onto Shiro’s hand. They burned like acid. The minutes stretched into hours. Into days.The moment snapped.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FallingNarwhals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingNarwhals/gifts).



The screams of the crowd subsided into a dull roar as Shiro charged. 

The movements flowed smoothly into each other: _Left foot. Right foot._ The seconds seemed to stretch like taffy. _Twist. Pivot. Raise your blade._

 _Leap._

_Swing._

_Strike._

The sword slid into Myzax’s body with sickening ease. It severed muscle and stopped abruptly against a heavy bone with a crunch that seemed louder than the ambient noise of the echoing arena. For a moment Shiro only heard the pounding of blood in his ears, heart beating faster than should have been possible. His vision narrowed to the point of impact, the tiny drops of blue-black blood leaking out around the weapon (sword? Shiro would call it a sword, it was easier that way) where it had lodged. One swelled, so imperceptibly slowly, and trickled gelatinously downwards. Rivulets of blood pooled on the hilt of the sword and spilled onto Shiro’s hand. They burned like acid. The minutes stretched into hours. Into days.

The moment snapped.

Myzax bellowed as he finally registered the pain of Shiro’s blow. His enraged strike sent Shiro flying, tumbling to the ground several meters away. He heard a sound, unbelievably loud, like a sonic boom or the cracking of a whip. He registered no pain, but a surprisingly logical part of his mind informed him that it was probably his right collarbone. Shiro had slipped into some sort of fight-or-flight overdrive. His senses were sharper, he noticed more.

Myzax recovered before Shiro did. As Shiro stumbled to his feet, relying on his left arm to push himself up, Myzax attempted to swing his club and discovered that Shiro’s strike had severed some important muscle group. The momentary delay gave Shiro enough time to scoop up his sword and ready himself for the next attack. The sword felt awkward in his left hand but, as he reflected grimly, people less than a minute from being brutally murdered in an alien gladiator arena couldn’t be choosers. He set his stance and locked eyes with Myzax.

They danced. 

Shiro kept himself too close to Myzax for the huge club to be of much use. He found that his size was an advantage, he could move faster and dodge the clumsy close-quarters strikes. He darted in and out, landing strikes wherever he could, reveling in the spurting blood and the pained screams.

Shiro aimed his swings at Myzax’s damaged shoulder, tearing a deep crater, where greenish bone was beginning to show. The retaliatory swings went wide, painfully grazing Shiro’s back, but doing no significant damage. The attacks became wild, clumsier, desperate. Shiro seized the opportunity as Myzax tried to land a kick on his chest, half rolling under the huge foot and cutting a gleaming arc through the air as he landed a solid blow in the back of Myzax’s knee. 

Later, Shiro would learn that it was pure luck that caused him to hit a critical tendon. In fact, in 86% of alien species, the back of the knee was well armored and his attack would have been worthless. As it was, Myzax stumbled, tottered, and fell. Shiro barely managed to roll out of the way as the gladiator collapsed. He lay on the ground, gasping for breath. The sound of the crowd brought him back to his senses. His body was moving slower now, the pain and adrenaline taking their toll. Shiro barely managed to stand and level his blade at Myzax’s huge throat.

The sounds of the crowd snapped into focus again, though Shiro hadn’t realized that he’d been blocking them out. The inarticulate screams had changed to a sharp chant. The word didn’t make sense at first, even though it seemed to be in English. The sounds coalesced into a single word, **“KILL!”** it repeated, over and over, until it faded into gibberish in Shiro’s ears, **“KILL!”** There were screams. People cheered. The chanting continued, louder, faster, until it began to sink into his mind and fill up every corner, pushing out thought **“Kill!”** For a long second, Shiro considered his opponent’s vulnerable neck. It would be so easy. So fast. Just one swing, a spurt of blood, an ending. Myzax deserved it. He was a murderer, a monster. Evil. 

Shiro shook himself. Those weren’t his thoughts. That was the crowd. He was absorbing the tension and rage in the arena. With an effort of will, he forced his hand to release the sword. It clattered to the ground, with a sound like a frying pan being dropped on nearly-dry cement. He raised his chin and stalked toward the exit. Two Sentry Drones grabbed his arms and dragged him away, down empty echoing halls.

***

The next thing Shiro remembered was being dragged through an unfamiliar corridor, and then being dropped unceremoniously on cold metal table. His mind raced, remembering the stories that went around the prisoner cells, of people who were taken and never came back, or who came back mutilated, or dying of mysterious diseases, or broken and catatonic. Instead, a Galra with rough hands twisted Shiro’s collarbone back into alignment. Shiro stifled his screams and held perfectly as the medic sprayed some sort of antiseptic aerosol into the deeper cuts and burns across his skin. It stung, but he seemed to be floating a few inches away from his body, and the pain was several layers of exhaustion away from the fore of his mind.

He followed the medic’s curt instructions as his right arm was secured firmly to his body with some kind of bandage that left a cool numbness in his flesh and kept him from moving even his fingers. The medic had a habit of muttering to himself as he wrote, and Shiro managed to gather that it was only a temporary measure, until the “druids” could do a more permanent fix. He did not like the medic’s tone of voice when he said that last bit, but he said nothing.

***

Shiro was led into a large room. He almost laughed when he finally managed to process his surroundings—it was nearly identical to a human office, if more purple and on a slightly larger scale. The décor gave Shiro the distinct impression that he was not meant to be standing there, and that he should be apologizing for every speck of dirt and blood that he had tracked on the immaculate carpeting.

Behind the desk sat a Galra in what seemed to be standard high-rank armor, customized to his unique body type and, presumably, sense of style. He appeared to be of the fluffy subtype, with white streaks in the fur growing off his ears. If you hadn’t seen his face, he might have seemed innocent, even cute, but there was something in his eyes that made Shiro want to turn and run right then and there, despite the three Sentry Drones that stood behind him, blocking the door. The yellow glow seemed to see straight through Shiro, like he was less of a person than a replacement stained-glass window. 

The Galra stood and walked out from behind his desk. He was over seven feet tall and loomed over Shiro, pacing back and forth before standing in front of him and looking down, forcing Shiro to crane his neck. 

“So this is the new Champion.” The Galra flicked a lock of Shiro’s hair, “doesn’t look like much”

Shiro had no idea what supernatural force kept him upright as the Galra stepped away from him again. His hands were trembling and his legs felt like they were going to collapse. He prayed that the Galra wouldn’t need a response, because he felt like the effort of speaking would pop him like a balloon and he would collapse. Actually, that wouldn’t have been that bad, considering the situation.

The Galra settled back, leaning casually against his desk. He made eye contact with Shiro again and his tone changed abruptly, “So, _Champion_ —” the entire word dripped with irony— “what do you want?” 

Shiro stood still, terrified to move.

“I asked you a question, Champion.”

Shiro managed to push his spine a little straighter as he began the speech he had practiced in his mind a thousand times in that dark cell, “My name is Takashi Shirogane and I am the representative of—“

“Spare me. You must want something. Better food? Your own room? A concubine?”

Shiro shook his head mutely

“Perhaps your little boyfriend then?”

No human force could have suppressed Shiro’s shocked gasp, “H-how did you…” he managed to stutter.

“Romance is surprisingly universal. A peculiar weakness, one that we Galra have eliminated, but my inability to indulge does not mean that I am not above using it.” He chuckled and steepled his fingers, “Is that what you want, _Champion?_ ”

Shiro thought it about it. He thought of Matt, alone, injured, on his way to god-knew-where, and a little part of him broke. He had tried. He had tried so hard to save Matt, to sacrifice himself, but he couldn’t. He needed Matt. Still, he couldn’t—he couldn’t—

He dropped to his knees on the floor, genuflecting in front of the Galra, reaching out towards his metallic feet, “y-yes, please, please, I want it! I want Matt!”

“Very well, perform in the arena, comply with the druids, and perhaps, _perhaps_ , you will see your boyfriend again.”

Shiro had expected more resistance, more torture, more pain. He stared up into the Galra’s face. The Galra smiled ferally, showing more sharp teeth than Shiro could have imagined, “Say ‘yes Lord Sadak, thank you Lord Sadak’ “

“Yes Lord Sadak. Th-thank you Lord Sadak”

The Galra—Sadak—waved a lazy hand to the Sentry Drones, who grasped Shiro firmly by the shoulders, eliciting a gasp of pain, and dragged him out of the room. The door to Sadak’s office had barely closed before he passed out cold.

***

Shiro huddled in the corner of the cell. The other prisoners gave him a wide berth. He heard the word repeated in their whispers, _Champion_. Destroyer, killer, murderer. _Champion_. Pawn of the Galra, servant of Sadak. _Champion_. Monster. _Champion_. 

He wanted to scream, to tell them that he was weak, that he couldn’t hurt them. That he wasn’t a monster. Instead, he huddled tighter, hugging his knees, forcing himself to breathe, to think clearly. His left thumb traced the raised scar on his right collarbone, where the druids had ripped open his flesh and soldered his bone back together. He winced away from the memory of the pain. Don’t think. Don’t think. Something else somethingelse somethingelsesomethingelse. 

_Shiro met Matt for the first time at the Garrison. He was nearly running, a tall stack of papers clutched to his chest. He’d caught Matt coming out of a classroom and they collided and tumbled to the floor in a tangled heap. Matt laughed as they untangled and picked up the reams of calculus homework, making some sort of joke about how he’d always known that an integral would kill him someday. Shiro didn’t even notice that he was late to class. All he could think about were those deep amber eyes and the way that Matt’s entire face lit up when he laughed._

_Roommates at the Garrison were assigned randomly. Shiro burst into his new room and slung his duffel bag on the top bunk. It took him a few seconds to realize that there was another person in the room, and exactly who that person was. It took a day for Shiro to notice that Matt had a Spiderman pillowcase. It took him a week to get Matt to call him “Shiro” instead of “calculus boy”. It took six weeks before Shiro asked him what his sister’s name was. Four months later, they had their first kiss. A week after that they officially started dating._

_They had applied for the Kerberos mission together, Why not? Ten months in the middle of nowhere just you and me and the stars Matt had explained. And Spiderman Shiro had added, and hit Matt with a pillow. He hadn’t meant it, and when the orders finally arrived they embraced, too emotional for words._

_One thousand three hundred fifty seven kisses, stolen in the tiny ship while Commander Holt politely pretended not to be watching._

_Forty three cold feet shoved up the back of Shiro’s uniform._

_Fifteen harrowing EVAs to repair critical machinery, with Shiro holding his breath, nothing to do but sit silently and pray._

_Two manual course corrections, when Shiro’s skills as a pilot were put to the test with nothing but his clever hands between the three of them and an endless journey into the void._

_One landing on Kerberos, perfect, not even a bump as they touched down._

_One celebratory kiss, in front of Sam, because who cared anymore?_

_One second before everything fell apart._

_The night, when the purple glow that lit their cell flickered and faded, when Shiro and Matt had found their way by touch and whispers towards Commander Holt in the blackness. Their voices, hushed out of fear and necessity, as they asked for one more favor before they went to the arena, his blessing, so they could get married, if they ever escaped._

He would get Matt back. Or he would die trying.

***

Over the next three days, Shiro received better rations. He was permitted to go outside the cell to exercise. Twice, a druid checked the status of his various injuries. He could feel the resentment of his fellow prisoners growing, but he had always kept to himself, and to Sam and Matt. It was almost a relief when the huge doors of the cell crashed open and the blank, affectless voice of a Sentry Drone barked **“117-9875”**

***

The drones shoved Shiro into the ring, leaving him to stumble and fall to his knees on the slick floor of the arena. A sword like the one he had been issued before clattered to the ground beside him, before the sound was drowned by the roars of the crowd. Every sense was on fire. He smelled blood and fear-sweat, tangy and metallic. The floodlights, white, unlike the rest of the ambient light in his prison, blinded him as he tried to look up and process his surroundings. The sensory data overwhelmed him, made him want to cower and cover his eyes and scream. He could not scream.

_The guards dumped Shiro unceremoniously into Sadak’s office. The Galra was seated behind his desk, and he looked down patronizingly on Shiro kneeling on the floor in front of him, “Well, Champion, the time has come for you to enter the arena again.” The feral smile, the one that Shiro had already learned to fear, spread across his face, revealing those sharp teeth, “In order to continue our little… arrangement, I want you to perform for me”_

Shiro groped blindly for the sword—what had Sadak called it? An Etrem? His hand found the grip, hard, with divots perfectly spaced for his fingers. He focused on the feeling of it in his hand and stood, pushing his spine straight and squaring his shoulders.

_You need to put on a show._

He strode to the center of the ring, keeping his steps cool and measured. He would perform, for Matt.

_Show them what a champion looks like_

He thrust his Etrem above his head and roared. The crowd screamed back, chanting phrases in some alien language. The universal translators failed to tease out the cacophony. It made it easier to focus his mind. Shiro turned to face the other gate in the arena, where his opponent would emerge. 

He waited.

The alien figure who stumbled into the arena was bright blue and nearly seven feet tall when ze stood straight. Now ze slumped nearly halfway over, seemingly in severe pain. One of hir five arms clutched a heavy club and two others held small shields. After a second, Shiro recognized hir, ze was one of his cellmates, one of seven Nezzuda who shared the tight space. On his first day in the Galra prison, ze had given him some of hir rations and helped nurse him through tractor beam shock. He felt a level of loyalty to hir, ze had earned it. Then he snapped out of it—Matt was the one who mattered. He needed Matt. He needed Matt. He needed Matt.

Shiro had always had a cool head in a crisis. It was one of the reasons he was chosen for the Kerberos mission. He wasn’t sure if this counted as a crisis, but the principle appeared to hold true. Now, he felt all emotion sliding away as that cool, rational crisis mode took over. His vision focused on the Nezzuda, blocking everything out. Ze was no longer a friend, an ally, but a dangerous enemy. An obstacle between him and Matt. A threat. A threat. His mind raced, trying to find patterns, weaknesses, anything so that he could survive, could make it out of the arena. Could get Matt

Wait for it. 

Wait for it

_There!_

Later, from the pain in his throat, Shiro realized he must have screamed as he charged his opponent. Ze reacted surprisingly quickly, putting hir shield between the etrem and hir body. What ze didn’t expect was Shiro’s left hand, fingers locked into a sharp point, stabbing upward into hir fleshy torso. Ze stumbled backward, wheezing. In ten seconds, Shiro had hir pinned to the ground, one foot on hir chest, hands raised to the audience.

The roar of the crowd coalesced into that same chant of “KILL!” Shiro looked down at his opponent, at hir bloodied face and pleading eyes. He remembered, suddenly, that by hir planet’s reckoning, ze was a child, barely old enough to speak in full sentences. He—he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill hir. 

He lifted his foot, slung his etrem across his shoulder, and walked pointedly away. He would do Sadak’s bidding, he would perform, but he would not kill children. He would not become the monster that they wanted him to become.

***

 

Sadak seemed more cold and distant than usual. He seemed to note every atom of blood and grime on Shiro’s body. His disturbing bright eyes focused on Shiro and he wasted no time on pleasantries, “I’m disappointed in you, Champion,”

“I did what you said, I performed, I—“

“You did not!” Sadak snarled and half-rose from his seat before settling again, “You will understand soon enough. Drones, execute protocol Champion Beta.”

The drones grabbed Shiro’s arms and dragged him through another door, one of several, set in the back wall of Sadak’s office. It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the faint purple light, and when they did, he gasped and tried to stumble backwards. 

The small room was lit only by dim purple strips around the floor. There were two fixtures in the room, a heavy metal chair, about the size of a human, with thick steel cuffs and a complex system of head restraints, and a surgical metal table. Two Galra figures, dressed in the hooded robes and beaklike masks of low-status druids, stood next to the table, preparing a selection of tools that did not seem to bode well for any patient. And strapped to the table was Shiro’s opponent, the kind Nezzuda child, face already covered with sweat and a thin layer of blood.

Shiro didn’t dare to remember the next hours. He tried to push the sounds of the Nezzuda’s screams out of his mind, and failed. He had sat for hours, unable to look away, unable to blink, as the druids had exacted more pain than Shiro had imagined possible. It was a relief when ze suddenly gasped, jerked twice, and let hir head fall, limp and silent. From beneath one mask, Shiro overheard one druid one druid’s dismissive mutter, “heart failure, ze was weak.”

After an eternity, Shiro was dragged, trembling, covered with thick yellow blood, into a tiled room and roughly hosed down. He was deposited unceremoniously in his cell, and his fellow prisoners seemed to edge even farther away from him. A single figure approached him, reaching out with one blue arm to grasp the sleeve of his ragged uniform, “Please—please help me. I need to know, please. What did they do with my child?” He stared at hir, blank eyed, and ze retreated to the opposite side of the cell, into the arms of the five other remaining Nezzuda, and began to whimper, hushed by the prisoners—it wasn’t to show weakness, grief, pain.

Shiro curled in the corner of the cell, ignoring the fact that the other prisoners pushed themselves as far away as possible from his dull gaze, full of pain and anger. He repeated Sadak’s words to himself, over and over, “You will kill them, or we will”

***

He was rewarded. Better food, better weapons, a private cell. Sometimes his opponents were weak. Other times they were strong or fast or tough beyond belief. Shiro began to collect scars. There were days when he was honestly afraid that he’d never leave the arena, days when he nearly gave up hope. There were fights where he passed out moments after his opponent died, only to wake up to druids leaning over him, with their scalpels and poisons and buzzing instruments of pain.

Twice, he watched an opponent that he refused to kill be tortured to death in that little room behind Sadak’s office. He learned how to kill quickly, painlessly. But he still killed.

After twenty fights he lost count. He lived in a fugue, moving from one minute to the next, one monstrous act to another. The only thing that kept him going were the images of Matt, distributed when he did well, when he was compliant, a good little champion. He would have done anything for those tiny holographs of Matt, emaciated, limping, but alive. Shiro subsumed himself in the role, in the person that he had to be, to get those little glimpses of his last tie to humanity. 

***

Shiro stepped confidently into the arena, jogging to the center and making a slow spin, so that the whole audience could see him. He shouted, the trademark roar of the Champion, and the audience bellowed back, mimicking his cadences. Shiro listened to their roars, read the banners that they held, seemed to bask in the glow. He had already dropped into the role of Champion, not Shiro the man but the monster that did what needed to be done. He crouched, snarling, and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, etrem at the ready. 

When his opponent stumbled into the arena, Shiro blinked in confusion. The creature was tiny, with large fluffy ears and huge shining eyes. It was—cute, adorable even. It reminded Shiro of Matt’s dog when he was a puppy, but with more fur. Shiro snapped back into focus as the crowd’s boos swept over him like a tsunami. He had to do this, for Matt. 

For Matt. 

For Matt.

The creature cowered as Shiro approached. He began to sift meaning out of the high-pitched stream of words “please-don’t-hurt-me-I’m-scared-please-don’t-please-don’t!” Shiro didn’t react. He had heard opponents beg before. He would hear it again. A small part of him felt sorry for the creature. It should have had a life far away from this brutal place, these people who would bring it nothing but pain. He gave the creature the only mercy he could, in this cold and brutal place.

In a minute, it was over. The body lay limp at Shiro’s feet. The screams still echoed in his ears. 

The Champion stalked away. He felt no pain, no pity. He felt no fear. He had done what was required of him. He would survive. He would find Matt. That was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, fallingnarwhals is responsible for this.
> 
> I'm considering adding more chapters, but for now this is a stand-alone. It's still the longest fic I've ever published though, so I'm calling that an achievement.


End file.
